Style
by StarsandMaple
Summary: Maka Albarn admired Death the Kid from the beginning, but when he starts to get on her nerves the relationship becomes a bit 'love-hate'... What will happen when these two quarrelsome meisters find themselves having to work together? MakaxKid
1. Disclaimer

**Disclaimer**

**I do not own any of the familiar characters, places or anything else that appears in the following story. All of that awesome stuff belongs to Atsushi Ohkubo and Funimation :) Please enjoy!**


	2. Prologue

**Two years ago...**

"Is that… The boy everyone's been talking about?"

Maka Albarn gazed up at the battle that was taking place high above her, but her attention was drawn to the boy with the black hair and golden eyes. She'd never seen him before, she didn't even know his name, but for a brief moment she was distracted from the fact that her reckless weapon partner had skipped class just to pick a fight with the new kid. Maka already knew that there was no way that Soul and Black*Star could win this fight, even though she'd only been watching for a couple of minutes, it was already obvious who was the stronger team.

_He's… Amazing…_


	3. Chapter One

**Present Day – A Few Months After the Battle of Asura**

"Would you stop following me please?" Maka was walking a few paces in front of the young reaper; even still she could still feel his perfectly symmetrical grin radiating from his annoyingly perfect face.

_Well, except for those strips…_ Maka now found herself grinning.

"I'd stop following you if you'd just _wait_ for a second!" Maka could hear the frustration in his voice. He'd been following her around for the last ten minutes. He had been in such a hurry to get out of their last class so that he could pester her about something to do with symmetry… She didn't really care, she was getting annoyed very quickly so she just kept walking, increasing her pace every time she felt like he wasn't getting the message to leave her alone.

"I said… Wait!" Maka heard the even steps behind her hasten, and before she knew is she was being pulled forcefully by her shoulders. Maka almost toppled over after being grabbed with such force. This boy was never gentle when dealing with the issue of Maka's symmetry, he got picky about the littlest upset in how she looked and chased her down for it. This wasn't the first time that this kind of thing had happened either; one day it was that her tie was too far over to one side, the day after that one of her sleeves would be rolled up more than her other sleeve, the next it was that one side of her skirt was further up her leg than the other, those days were particularly embarrassing. Today it was her hair. Maka didn't have much of a care when it came to her appearance, so she usually just tied her hair back quickly without much thought given to it. After this ordeal, maybe she would actually make more of an effort in order to avoid these sorts of confrontations.

Maka was spun 'round by the strong arm on her shoulder until she faced a pair of glowing, golden eyes framed by thick, dark hair.

Death the Kid.

Son of death himself, the next grim reaper, survivor of the Battle of Asura, complete golden boy...

"Your bang was crooked, it needed to be corrected,"

…_And total psycho._

Kid dropped his hand away from Maka's hair, a grin forming once again as he admired his work.

"_Much_ better, you actually look half decent now," Maka returned his smug expression with a scowl, resisting the urge to run her hand through her bangs and mess them up again after his ill-mannered remark; but she knew he'd only try and fix them.

"Thanks…" she mumbled sarcastically, quickly tearing her arm out of his strong grasp and turning on her heels before he pulled out a pair of tweezers and tried to make her eyebrows more symmetrical or something…

Kid's expression dropped when he saw that his efforts weren't being appreciated and resorted to follow Maka in an almost sulking manner. Neither meister understood the other, nor why they were acting the way they were. With her back to him, Maka carried on walking at the same increased pace as before she had been rudely stopped. Kid continued to follow her to their next class, one hand in each pocket in order to preserve the balance between left and right.

_Finally_ Maka though as she arrived at Doctor Stein's classroom, the place she had been trying to get to for nearly fifteen minutes now. A few more minutes of Kid's pestering and they would have both been late, which would not have been good considering what they had to do today. Their teacher, Doctor Stein had arranged for all of his senior EAT students to sit a written exam today. Maka had spent the past month studying and preparing for it and she felt fairly confident. She knew she needed to focus though and mentally cursed Death the Kid for breaking her concentration with his neurotic tendencies.

As she entered the classroom, Maka found her usual seat and began arranging her things on her desk ready for the test. Kid slid by her and quietly took his place in one of the seats behind her. Not long after Maka had sat down, her weapon partner, Soul, strolled into the room, taking his seat next to Maka, absent-mindedly throwing a pen onto his desk and shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Hey…" he greeted his partner, not turning his attention away from the front of the classroom.

"Hey yourself, you feeling okay about the test today?" Soul grinned at her.

"Wouldn't be very cool if I wasn't,"

Just then Stein made his entrance. To everyone's surprise, he wasn't wheeling himself around on an office chair like he usually was; instead he just walked into the room with a clipboard at his chest.

"Now calm down students," he said to an already virtually silent room "Your written exam today has been… Indefinitely suspended," there was a collective sigh of relief from a lot of the students, including Soul.

_Hmm, well prepared huh?_ Maka thought to herself as she furrowed her brow. She knew Stein, he wouldn't just call off a test like that without a reason…

_Or something else planned._

"You will be taking part in a practical exam in the training hall instead, the exam will start in ten minutes, please don't be late," Stein turned out of the room as his students stared after him.

_That was very sudden,_ thought Maka to herself. _There's something weird about it, what is this really about?_

~ 8 8 8 ~

Ten minutes later, the training hall at DWMA was packed with a class of nervous students. As far as most of them were concerned, this type of exam was far more daunting than the written exam they had been promised. The room that they were standing in was about the size of a school gymnasium; the walls were an off white and the floor was made of some sort of coated hardwood. The school had to rethink the material of the walls and floor of the training hall after one particularly enthusiastic student blew two giant holes in the old building. Since then, the room had been redone in more durable materials that had yet to even receive a scratch. Maka stood with Soul at the front of the group. Maka looked around at her classmates and spotted Kid and his weapons, the Thompson sisters, on the other side of the group. Just watching them, you could feel the concentration radiating from them. Kid was preparing himself for whatever was about to happen. Maka sighed to herself…

_...He's just too darn perfect._

Feeling a shift in the air, Kid looked over to catch Maka watching him. He grinned as she quickly turned away, turning red in frustration at his smugness. Kid gazed after her for another beat, before turning back to Stein, who appeared to be going over some sort of data on his clipboard with a blank expression.

"All right class…" he finally spoke as he lowered his clipboard "I assume you are all familiar with how a tournament works? Good," he didn't even bother to let anyone speak out "The aim of this practical assessment will be to figure out which of you is better than everyone else, to put it simply. I have drawn out a table of who you will be fighting in the first round. The winners of each battle will move on to the next round while the others will get remedial lessons. The earlier you are knocked out, the more tedious the remedial, all understood?" the class groaned collectively and some began to whisper to each other as Doctor Stein walked over to a whiteboard that had been behind him. As the chatter continued, Stein started writing down names of students underneath joining lines, Maka and Kid both watched him intently. There were four pairs of names, which meant there would be three rounds to this tournament. Maka soon spotted her name next to Black*Star and Tsubaki. Her heart jump slightly, sure Black*Star was an idiot but he wasn't to be underestimated, especially now that he had more than proved himself capable of winning a fight.

"You ready for this Soul?" Maka asked her partner.

"Let's do this,"

"Okay class," Stein turned away from the board "Find your name and your opponent then go off into one of the four segments that have been drawn out on the floor. There are only a few rules to this tournament, if you go outside of your segment, hit any of the walls or ceiling or kill your opponent, you will be disqualified. You will fight until your opponent is unable to continue,"

Once the students had found their opponents and their own segment of the room they faced each other. Stein had moved up to an observing position in a small room above the training hall. He spoke to his students over a speaker system.

"_Okay class, face your opponents,"_ you could hear a pin drop in the silence of the room. Maka looked around the room briefly to become aware of her bearings. She could see the groups of students looking very nervously at their opponents, trying to focus. Death the Kid, however, looked as calm as anything. He was facing one of the female meisters in their class, Tomoko, who clutched her nunchuck weapon while trying to look in control. It wasn't working though; Maka immediately noticed that she was wearing a broach on the left side of her shirt, but not her right. This was going to be a very easy battle for Kid…

"_Ready…"_ Stein broke Maka out of her thoughts and she turned her attention back to the battle that was about to take place.

"_Begin!"_ Maka's stance turned defensive as she clutched her scythe, she knew that Black*Star's fighting style was all about the offensive and she was going to use that against him.

She didn't really need to though as with one flamboyant "Yahoo!" Black*Star catapulted himself into the air, hitting his head on the ceiling with a loud '_fwack_'.

"_Black*Star, you're disqualified…"_ Stein's voice came over the speaker system. Black*Star had landed on the floor of the training hall unmoving. It looked like the impact from hitting the ceiling had knocked him out.

Maka exhaled in relief then let out a giggle.

_He'll never change_.

Soul transformed back into his human form.

"All right… Well that was pretty easy. Though I don't feel good about winning by default, cool guys fight their battles," Soul said, looking slightly disappointed that their first battle turned out to be a bust.

Maka nodded and smiled. She turned her attention to her other classmates who were still fighting. Only two of the battles were still taking place; Ox and his team had quickly defeated their classmate Felix and his weapon partner and were moving on with Maka and Soul into the next round. Kid was still busy fighting with Tomoko, yelling at her to…

"**Take off that stupid broach, have you no shame!? It's disgusting!**" and so on. Not five seconds later, Kid blasted Tomoko to the other side of the room using Patty and Liz's bullets. After one of Stein's assistants made sure that she was still breathing, Kid was declared the winner of the match and he would move on to the next round.

Soon after the conclusion of this battle, the fourth battle ended, declaring Kim and her partner the winners.

"_That concludes the first round of the tournament. Will the losing teams please follow Cid who will be escorting Tomoko to the nurse's office… He will also be assigning you your remedial lesson,"_ Stein's voice was promptly followed by loud protest from Black*Star, who claimed that "Stars don't need remedial lessons!" and demanded a rematch. Finally, after they had managed to drag him from the room, followed by the rest of the students and Tomoko on a stretcher, they began the next round.

"_I have drawn lots for each of you," _Stein began to explain over the speaker system _"Death the Kid, Liz and Patty, you will be fighting Kim and Jacqueline, Ox and Harvar, your opponents will be Maka and Soul. Each fight may now take up two conjoining segment, please decide which segments you will be fighting in and face your opponents"_ without a word, they all separated into one half of the hall, Maka's and Ox's team taking the one closest to the exit and Kid's and Kim's team taking the one on the far side.

"Let's actually try and fight this time," said Soul to Maka, as he changed into his scythe mode. Maka smiled, but couldn't help the nerves that were slowly starting to form in the pit of her stomach as she grabbed hold of her scythe. Ox had always been a rival to her, and now all she wanted to do was beat him at this so that she could finally prove that she was the better meister both intellectually and practically.

Ox stood about 5 meters away from her. Maka could tell from his expression that he was planning out the match precisely, predicting her movements and formulating the best way to counter them. He grinned intimidatingly at her, holding his spear in his right hand. He was trying to scare her and make her lose focus, but Maka wasn't about to fall for it. She took an offensive stance and started to plan herself. She wasn't as familiar with his fighting style as she was with Black*Star's, but she was eager to get this fight over and done with.

"_Ready…"_ Maka swallowed hard.

"_Begin!"_


	4. Chapter Two

"_Begin!"_

On Stein's mark Maka charged at Ox. He took a defensive stance, pointing his spear straight at her. Taking a leap into the air, Maka practically ran off of his weapon in order to gain more height and swung Soul down at his back as she summersaulted in the air. She missed her mark though. As she had expected, Ox had been calculating her movements, so he was already well out of the way of her attack and now in a position to counter.

_Damn it…_ Maka tried to locate her opponent from mid-air, but he had moved too quickly. Instinctively, she swung her leg out as she landed, hoping to trip him up. He appeared above her and jumped to avoid her leg.

Then it was his turn. He spun his spear around above him and brought it down, sweeping through the air. Maka jumped back on her hands and countered his movement, searching for room to attack. They fought, too evenly matched. Neither side was about to give and Maka could have sworn she had overheard Stein's voice over the speakers announcing a winner from the other match, but she couldn't pay attention to that with the battle going on in front of her.

As she defended herself from Ox's attacks Maka tried to think of a plan, something to catch him out. It was tricky with such a calculating opponent to think of something that they wouldn't have a response to. She searched her mind, trying to think of all of the times she had seen Ox fight. Was there an enemy that had ever bested him at any point?

She couldn't think of anything though, and she was tiring fast.

_Clang!_ Their weapons connected, and now it was just a fight of brute strength.

"_Come on Maka,"_ Soul spoke out from inside his weapon form.

She wouldn't lose to him, she _couldn't_ lose to him.

_Especially not with Kid watching this_ she thought, but stopped herself.

_Don't do it for him, beat this guy for yourself!_

And then she saw it. Her opening.

Just as Ox was pushing his spear on Soul's handle, Maka looked down and knew exactly how to beat this guy.

She grinned a lopsided grin and with all the force she could muster, pushed against Harvar, sending Ox stumbling back. Then she swung Soul down towards the meister's head, forcing him to block upward and, with a firm swing of her right leg, kicked Ox right between the legs!

"Ow!" he cried as he dropped to his knees, protecting himself with his arms and trying to sooth the pain.

"That really hurt! What are you, nuts?!"

_No pun intended…_ Maka smiled down at her opponent and brought her right leg up to stand on his side.

"Looks like you dropped something," Maka indicated to his weapon lying on the ground next to him. Ox snarled back at her with barred teeth.

"_Looks like after a very… Unconventional fight, Ox has dropped his weapon and thus can no longer fight so… Maka is the winner of this one,"_ Maka smiled and looked up at the booth where Stein was sitting. She gave Ox a small kick with her foot, before stepping off of him and joining the others at the side of the hall. At some point during the fight Cid had returned to the hall to oversee the second round of battles, and probably to also collect the students who lost out in their fights. Maka soon learned the Kid has won his battle against Kim, unsurprisingly. She was clutching her left arm and it looked like she was bleeding quite heavily, her face going white. It could have been a lot worse for her though; at least she wasn't being taken out on a stretcher.

Maka looked to her right where Kid was standing, hands in his pockets, blank expression on his face, looking like he hadn't broken a sweat. He looked over at her and brought his hand up to her chest. Instinctively she brought her arms up to cover herself.

"What do you think you're doing, pervert!" Kid stared at her, dumbstruck. Then his expression quickly shifted to frustration.

"I'm just trying to fix your vest!" he exclaimed, "One side of your vest is visible from behind your coat while the other is hidden!"

"Well I can fix that myself! I don't need you groping me thank you very much," she said as she quickly tucked her vest under her coat.

"Now look what you've done! You've just pulled the other side of your vest out, here, just let me fix you…" he reached out again but Maka stepped back to avoid him, her hands balling into fists at her sides.

"It's fine! Just leave my vest alone!"

"No! If you would just stay still!"

"Stop trying to touch me you perv!"

"Just let me fix you!" Kid dived at Maka, tackling her to the floor.

"Ouch!" Maka yelped at the suddenness of his attack, "What was that for?!"

"I just need to fix your vest…" Kid was already working on correcting her attire.

"It's just a vest, what is the big deal?!"

"It… Isn't… Symmetrical!"

Maka rolled him over so that she was on top of him.

"You're crazy!"

"Not as crazy as you are, how can you stand walking around with your vest un-tucked like that?" he rolled her over so that he could fix her clothing once and for all. Finally he looked down at her and smiled.

"Much better," he said as he sat up. Maka crossed her arms over her chest. Having finally sorted out the thing that was upsetting his OCD, Kid began to come to his senses just in time to realize what position he had put them in. He wouldn't normally have cared; he'd tackled many a person to the floor in order to correct their symmetry before, but for some reason as he was straddling Maka with his arms either side of her head, a blush rose to his face.

"Will you _please_ get off of me?"

Kid snapped out of it. He stood up and offered her his hand, which Maka didn't take as she stood up on her own, earning a scowl from Kid, who just shoved his hand back in his pocket.

Stein had been watching the two of them intently. He had come down from his booth in order to talk to both teams. Liz, Patty and Soul were standing in front him. Patty had been giggling uncontrollably throughout the entire episode while Soul and Liz just stood there, trying to divert their attention from another one of Kid's incidents.

Maka brushed her skirt off with her hands and stood with her classmates, Kid followed and stood on the other side of the group to put some distance between them.

"Congratulations you five! You have successfully beaten everyone else, well done," Stein grinned.

The students looked at him, all of them appearing slightly bored.

"Now, I guess you're all anxious to begin the final round. The rules are the same as the previous rounds, and this time you get to use the whole of the training hall for the fight. I'll be witnessing the match from here this time,"

With Soul, Liz and Patty all in their weapon forms, Maka and Kid made their way to the center of the room and faced each other. Stein raised his hand high above his head.

"Okay, ready…."


	5. Chapter Three

"Okay, ready…"

Before Stein could even finish, Maka and Kid both ran at each other. Kid shot some bullets from his twin guns which collided into Soul with a loud _clang_. Maka growled and lunged directly at him, swiping her scythe through the air almost carelessly, missing Kid by a hair as he ducked.

"_Whoa, easy there Maka,"_ Soul's words were wasted; Maka's attention was completely absorbed by the battle in front of her.

Kid was trying to keep distance from Maka, he propelled himself into the air to gain as much height as he could, giving him the advantage with his pistols. Maka wasn't having any of it, and she kept leaping and charging at the boy, swinging downward with her scythe in order to try and catch him. When Maka swung her scythe, Kid would jump higher or duck to avoid it. When Kid shot at Maka, she would block or run out of the way. It seemed that whatever one threw at the other, the other could dodge their attack; they were too closely matched. To Stein, who was looking at the pair with a grin on his face, their movements resembled a dance, though a very chaotic one, without either one of them taking the lead.

The only thing that was going through Maka's mind was beating him. She successfully dodged another bullet, which flew right by her ear and hit the floor behind her, causing a small scratch in the ground. Her eyes widened at the sight of the supposedly 'indestructible' flooring being scarred by none other than Death the Kid. This made her even more angry.

_It's like he's trying to show off!_

Another one of Liz and Patty's bullets flew at her, and she rolled skilfully out of its path, landing on one knee with Soul poised in front of her ready to defend. Maka realized then that he had only been firing his standard bullets the entire time, as though she wasn't worth any more than that. She could see it in his eyes that he thought he could beat her without trying anything fancy. She growled low in her throat as she discarded Soul on the ground.

"_What are you doing Maka?!"_ Soul called out to her, but she still wasn't listening. Kid was temporarily taken off guard by her strange behaviour, giving Maka just enough time to tackle him to the floor. Kid dropped Liz and Patty on his impact with the ground, which was quickly followed by some strong punches to his stomach and chest.

"Am I not worthy or something?" Maka cried at him as she pinned him to the floor.

"Get off of me please, you are acting like a child…" Kid crossed his arms over his chest. Maka glared back at him.

"_I'm_ the child?! Please, you're the one who can't get over his pathetic obsession with perfection! Why can't you just stop being so damn perfect!"

Soul, Liz and Patty had transformed back into their human forms and were watching the pair argue once again.

"You'd think that they could just have their fights standing up…" Liz hand her arms crossed, she was getting a bit bored of this.

Soul on the other hand was starting to worry about his meister; he had never seen her this wound up before. He understood why though of course.

_Because she admires him… And she wants him to respect her as an equal._

Soul had spent enough time with Maka to know what she was about. Though she wouldn't openly admit it, particularly in front of Kid, she was probably just as much of a perfectionist as the son of Death herself, and she hated it when there were others that she couldn't match. The fact that this boy wasn't even giving her the chance to try and beat him at his best was clearly frustrating her, especially since she still wasn't over their previous dispute.

They were still going at it, Soul sighed to himself.

_So not cool…_

"All right, I think we've all done our fair share of fighting today. Kid, please put down those scissors, Maka's hair is fine and I don't want you accidently poking her eye out,"

"What do you mean Professor, the fight isn't over," Liz spoke up.

"Well… Actually I was never going to have you five fight at all," Kid and Maka's heads snapped up.

"What?!" they called out in unison, something which made them both glare at each other.

"I never did get to say 'begin'. Actually, you all fulfilled the purpose of this test after winning your second round," Stein continued to speak. Soul, Liz, Kid and Maka all looked at their professor with narrow eyes; Patty was just sat by herself, singing along to something about elephants.

"The purpose of this test was to find the best of the best in order to put together a team for a very special mission that Lord Death has labelled as being of very high importance. You five are going to form that team and work together in order to track down a very big threat to Death City,"

_Work… With him?!_ Maka's eyes widened. She wasn't sure if she could handle it after everything that had happened today. Kid didn't notice this shift in expression, he was focusing on what Stein was telling them, any information about the mission that they would be taking; this was all part of his training.

"You will all be briefed on your mission in the Death Room tomorrow at 8 am. You will be leaving DWMA after lunch in order to begin your assignment, got it?"

"Yes sir," Soul, Liz and Patty all said in unison.

Stein turned to Maka and Kid, who had shifted away from each other and were now sat on the floor.

"Yes Professor," they both mumbled.

"Good! Then I'll see you when you make it back, cheerio!" Stein turned and left the hall, his voice coated in mock encouragement as he left his students to sort themselves out. As the door closed behind him, he sighed.

"If you make it back…"

~ 8 8 8 ~

Back at Maka and Soul's apartment, the two teammates were making their dinner. They were both starving after their long day at the academy, and hardly spoke as Soul chopped the vegetables that Maka then cooked on the stove. They were making pasta salad tonight.

When dinner was served, Soul managed to shove about half of his plate into one mouthful. He chewed appreciatively while Maka picked at her food, eating it at a snail's pace despite her obvious hunger. Soul swallowed his food.

"What's up Maka?" Maka's head snapped up.

"Hmm? Nothing! Not all of us have to eat our food as quickly as you do," she stuck her tongue out at her weapon.

"Aha, attractive…" silence took over once again.

"So you and Kid were getting pretty physical today," Soul didn't dare look up. Maka pretended not to hear the suggestive implication to his words; even so, she still blushed a little.

"I don't know what was with him today, I mean he was being more neurotic than usual, and that's saying something!" she still didn't look up, Soul, however, did. He grinned as he caught the remanence of redness in Maka's cheeks. He looked back at his food, a smug, sarcastic expression painting his features.

"I don't know he seemed all right to me," he took another mouthful of food "You seemed to get pretty riled up though,"

Maka's eyes widened.

"He was just… Getting on my nerves, that's all," she continued to hide her face but she could still feel heat flooding her cheeks.

"Of course, I'm sure that was all it was," Maka looked up at Soul, who winked at her, her eyes narrowed.

"What on Earth are you trying to get at Soul?"

"Just admit it, you've admired him from the start,"

"Have not! He's so annoying!"

"Isn't that what little girls say when they're trying to hide a crush?" Maka's face was scarlet.

"I absolutely, one hundred percent do _not_ have a crush on Death the Kid,"

"Whatever you say Maka, but just so you know being in denial is so not cool," before Maka could come up with a retort, Soul announced "Right, I'm stuffed, I'm going to turn in early," he got up from his chair and started to leave the kitchen.

"Don't forget to put your dishes in the sink,"

Soul turned on his heels, quickly collected his plates and carelessly all but tossed his dished into the kitchen sink.

He left the kitchen and just as he reached his bedroom door, Soul chuckled under his breath.

"Aha, you're both one and the same…"


End file.
